Mehbooba Mufti: SAARC, not G-20, key to India becoming ‘Vishwaguru’

14-05-2023 : The former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, claims that SAARC, not the G-20, is where India’s path to becoming a “Vishwaguru” will go. Mehbooba contends that having the SAARC summit and dealing with the issues in the region, particularly those in Pakistan, will elevate India to a position of leadership in the area and the wider world.

She further claimed that the government must understand that the road to becoming a leader leads through SAARC and not G-20. Mehbooba’s remarks come as the G-20 event is scheduled to take place in Kashmir and SAARC summits have not taken place since 2014. She also believes that the G-20 meeting may be a good promotion exercise for the BJP at the international level, but it is not going to make India a “Vishwaguru,” as they talk about.

In addition, she highlighted that the G-20 has become a BJP event, and the crackdowns in the valley are ongoing. The SAARC is a grouping of eight countries set up in December 1985, which includes India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The last planned SAARC summit was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016 but was called off as India expressed its inability to participate due to “prevailing circumstances” following a terror attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mehbooba emphasized that her father, former Union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, wanted to safeguard Article 370, land, and employment rights for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and that is why he took a bold step and put everything at risk, including his credibility, party, and politics, for a larger cause at stake. She also believes that the conditions in J-K are not conducive to holding elections and that the gulf between Srinagar and New Delhi has gone beyond repair.